From first to worst feeling

July 30, 2012|By Diane Pucin, Tribune Olympic Bureau

U.S. gymnast John Orozco reacts after falling during his landing off the vault Monday. (MCT photo)

LONDON — John Orozco was brought to tears by a vault that he landed sitting down instead of standing up. Danell Leyva cried at the end, when the U.S. men's gymnastics team finished a disappointing fifth, well out of medal contention after what had seemed a triumphant beginning at the Olympics two days before.

China scored 275.997 points to win its second straight men's team gold medal and its third in the last four Olympics Monday with a performance that was a complete reversal from a startling sixth-place finish in team qualifications.

Favored Japan took silver, more than four points behind the winners, and needed help from a video replay earn a medal at all. Britain won the bronze, its first team medal since 1912.

Olympic rookie Sam Mikulak, a 19-year-old from California, said he felt something new Monday, something he had never felt before as an athlete.

"A bunch of nerves," Mikulak said he felt. "I wasn't at my best."

Mikulak said feelings — anticipation, excitement, expectation — all became jumbled, as if the position of his arms and legs needed some sort of global navigation device.

"The Olympics just magnifies everything so much more than I expected," Mikulak said. "It was a lot more pressure than I expected."

After a mediocre start on the floor exercise the U.S., which had scored more points than any team in the qualification round last Saturday, just about ended all medal hopes on its second rotation, the pommel horse.

First Leyva came off the apparatus and scored a disappointing 13.400. Mikulak was up next and, knowing that another big mistake could end team hopes, he didn't waver. He completed the routine and gave the crowd a fist pump.

The third U.S. team member, Orozco, moved as if he was fighting his way through plastic wrap. He was slow and labored, posting a 12.733.

In team finals, the unforgiving format is that three of the five members compete and all three scores count. Mistakes can't be made to disappear as in qualifications where four men compete and only three scores count.

After only two rotations the Americans were seventh and more than seven points behind China.

Hopes of matching its 2008 bronze medal went away in the fourth rotation when Orozco landed his vault in on his bottom instead of his feet. When he came to the sidelines, Orozco had tears in his eyes, even before his low score of 14.600 was posted.

"It didn't go as planned today," said Orozco, who won U.S. nationals in May. "I can't help but feel personally responsible because I did five events. I did the most out of everyone and I botched two of them. It hurts."

The meet ended with a bit of a scoring controversy. When the last competitor, three-time world all-around champion Kohei Uchimura of Japan, finished on pommel horse, a score of 13.466 was posted. So were final standings — China first, Great Britain second, Ukraine third.

But the Japanese filed an inquiry and after about five minutes, Uchimura's apparatus score was changed to 14.166. That bumped his team to silver and, accompanied by a large chorus of boos, the British team to bronze. The Ukraine team was even worse off — fourth.

Even with that boost, Uchimura wasn't happy. "I am not entirely pleased about ending up with the silver medal," he said.

So transformed were the Chinese from the preliminary round that the team was asked whether it had purposely played possum two days ago. "It was not a smokescreen," said Zou Kai. "If we did that, it would not be serious and we did want to make the final."

From sixth to first, that's what the Chinese did. Better than first to fifth. Just ask the U.S.